BENGALURU: An important skill for a surgeon is being calm without panicking during an emergency. These are the same skills that chess – as a competitive sport – demands too. And Dr Somashekhar SP, an oncologist and robotic surgeon at Manipal Hospitals, has mastered both of these skills.
Having been playing international chess for a while now, Somashekhar says a key aspect of both is patience. “A surgeon is someone who needs to have a lion’s heart with a lady’s delicate finger. During operations, there are many ups and downs, but you need to be able to keep your mind calm and have self-control. Chess actually teaches that,” says Somashekhar, who started playing the mind game when he was seven years old. But he took it only seriously in medical college when he won the Karnataka championship twice.
The HoD of surgical oncology was also selected by the government for training in Russia. “But I could not take it up because I was also doing my Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) in the UK and the training was for a period of six months,” says the surgeon, adding that because of family issues, he could not take up chess as a profession. owing to family constraints. However, once he completed his FRCS, he resumed practice for tournaments. “I devote three months to FIDE, the international chess federation. Now, again in March, there is a FIDE tournament. I travel across the world to play chess,” he adds.
Being a surgeon is quite hectic. He does around 150 surgeries and sees about 1,000 patients a month, but manages to squeeze in time for chess. “Every night between 11pm and 3 am, I play online chess with international players on the net. I read a lot of books on the subject,” says Somashekhar, adding that his daughters also play the game. His all-time favourite players are Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov who he finds contrasting in nature.
“Karpov is very controlled and has good defense, while Karpov is erratic and emotional but has more wins with his sudden decisions that are not always rational,” says Somashekhar, adding that he grew up studying both these legends but relates more with Karpov. And of course, he loves the calm demeanour of Viswanathan Anand. “He used to come to Bengaluru to play matches at Chinnaswamy Stadium. He is far ahead of me but I have played a couple of friendly matches with him,” says the doctor, who loved the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, a drama series based on a chess prodigy.